


Zed

by excentrykemuse



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Criminal Masterminds, F/M, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 15:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15866232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excentrykemuse/pseuds/excentrykemuse
Summary: Zoe didn't know that the man who seduced her was possibly the most dangerous criminal on the planet ... Ernst Stravo Blofeld.





	Zed

Written September 2017

“I never should have brought you,” Uncle Jeremy murmured behind his hand. Zoe pushed her ash brown hair out of her eyes and listened to the Greek being spoken by one of the representatives sitting around the long table in the center of the room. Only high ranking officials sat there, giving their reports of the criminal enterprise her uncle was a low level enforcer of. Her mother had been the short term mistress of some official, she knew.

Zoe had heard Uncle Jeremy and Mum arguing about it once. She had suspected since that that one of her uncle’s employers was her father. One of these men, sitting around that table, speaking in a language she probably couldn’t understand, was her father. She spoke four herself, but they were all Romance languages for singing.

How thrilling this all was.

“Hush,” she murmured. “This is exciting.”

Uncle Jeremy buried his face in his hand. 

Zoe had had to stay late at school to finish a project and her mother couldn’t pick her up. Her mother was paranoid about giving Zoe any freedom. Apparently, freedom would be misused. Everything was carefully watched and prescribed down to the length of her telephone conversations. Zoe couldn’t even pick out her own clothes, paint her own nails. It was ridiculous. Her mother would not have her “repeating her own mistakes.” Whatever those were. 

She felt stifled. This was the first bit of freedom she had.

Staring at the figure at the head of the table, shrouded in shadows, she pondered the shape of the strong face. Zoe could see his suit, fitting his thin yet strong body well, and she bit her lip despite herself. He turned to a counselor to the side. Zoe bit her lip harder.

The figure tilted his head and Zoe kept looking, wondering what he was looking at. His chin was tipped upward as if he were looking at the balcony where she was standing. There were hundreds of people standing there, listening. Uncle Jeremy cursed and glanced over at her. He took her arm and began to pull her toward the back. A sense of urgency pulled Uncle Jeremy’s movements and Zoe even tripped once in her heels. They were almost to the door when a man stopped them. 

“He has very good eyesight.” The words were simple and yet terribly confusing—and in Italian. Uncle Jeremy seemed to understand their implications completely. 

“She’s just a school girl. She knows nothing of any of this. She only speaks English and no one has even reported in that language,” he lied easily.

The man, who was gruff with a goatee despite wearing a suit, replied: “Good. He would nonetheless like to see her.” Uncle Jeremy moved forward with her, his hand still holding onto her arm, but the man in the suit held up his hand, “Without your influence.”

“She hasn’t graduated seminary,” Uncle Jeremy explained.

“Bella. She can speak for herself.”

Reluctantly, Uncle Jeremy let go of her arm. Switching into English, he explained. “Go with this man. He should not harm you. Remember your mother. Learn from her,” he chided and then she was being led away. 

Someone was speaking in what she thought was Chinese.

Zoe looked down again at the shadowed face and found it tilted up toward her. She shook herself. She must be imagining things. Surely she must be. 

The building was old and she was led out of the hall and into the night air. The man in the suit conversed in Italian with a man holding a gun and she was taken up some stone steps into a series of rooms that were decorated lavishly. Finally there was a sitting room with a large chandelier and a servant in white tie brought out a bottle of Prosceco and two glasses. The bottle was opened and the glasses filled, three raspberries dropped precisely in each, and Zoe just stared.

The man in the suit stood by the door and Zoe glanced at him.

She waited for two hours and took off her heels that were part of the required school uniform for her ladies’ seminary. It was called that but really it was the premiere vocal academy for high school girls in all of Italy. It also taught comportment, languages, and manners so that its graduates could move in society as would be expected if they were successful professionally.

After about an hour Zoe also discarded her sweater but she left on her Hermes scarf although it felt a little tight because she thought it was a little silly how she looked like an airline hostess. 

There were the sounds of footsteps on the stairs and then a man she had never seen appeared. “Buona sera, mi acara. Spera che tu—”

“Forgive me,” she stated, cutting him off before he could say anything else. “I don’t speak Italian.” Remembering what Uncle Jeremy said, she thought it was better to continue with the ruse. The man might know; he might have been told. This was SPECTRE, a criminal organization. He might be testing her.

The man, in a suit so similar to the shadow’s, seemed delighted, his blue eyes lighting up. “I cannot place your accent, but I have not had a reason to speak English in so long, my dear.” He came and took her hand and kissed it. His lips were far too soft for a man’s, she thought. Then again, she had never felt a man’s lips.

“I’m Welsh,” she told him. “Mum quite despairs the accent. She sent me to Cardiff for my singing voice and when she discovered last year I speak like a heathen, she decided I should come live with Uncle Jeremy.—Who are you?”

“Ernst Blofeld. I know your uncle.” He held out his hand and a file was placed into it. He released her hand and opened the file carefully. “Jeremy Grant. He’s a rather talented enforcer. Bringing you here seems to be the first stain on his record.”

“It’s my fault,” she immediately told him. “I had a project and I didn’t want to wait in the car. I’m claustrophobic, ever since I was small and one of my mum’s boyfriends locked me in a closet for four days without food—”

Blofeld looked up at her, completely startled. “Well, I can understand why a loving uncle would break protocol,” he decided, closing the folder with a snap. He held out a hand toward the couch and she sat down, picking up her shoes carefully and setting them aside. 

This seemed to cause Blofeld to smile as he took a seat across from her. He looked at her quite openly and then signaled the butler who came over and picked up one of the glasses of Prosceco and handed it to her before Blofeld picked up his own. “To new friendships, Miss—”

“Grant,” she told him.

“But what name were you given?” he asked kindly. “Surely your friends don’t call you ‘Grant’?”

“Some do,” she replied with a blush. She didn’t know why she was blushing. “Zoe.”

“To new friendships, Zoe,” he completed, looking her in the eyes as she took a sip of her Prosceco.

She had never had alcohol before and she gasped at the bubbles. Quickly covering her mouth with her hand, she slanted her eyes downward, blushing once again.

“Do you not care for it, Zoe?”

“No,” she hurriedly denied. “No, I’ve just never had champagne before.”

He smiled at her, the chandelier light glinting off his golden hair. “It’s meant to be savored. Take small sips.”

Zoe blushed again, which highlighted her blue eyes, and then took another small sip. “Mr. Blofeld,” she asked after a minute—

“Ernst, please,” he interrupted, speaking while gesturing with his champagne glass, his other hand resting on the back of his sofa.

She bit her lip and looked away. “Ernst, then. Were you the man in the shadows or one of his advisors? Or were you someone else entirely? I’m a little confused. I know my uncle works for an international organization and is currently posted in Italy—”

“I was one of the men at the head of the table,” he answered dismissively, not exactly answering her question. He put down his Prosceco and held out his hand to the man in the suit, who gave him the folder again. Blofeld opened it and turned a page. “Jeremy Grant has one brother in England, a Charles Grant, who is married with two sons, Charles, Jr. and Alexander. He also has one sister, Emilia, who has never been married. No child listed. It seems our file is incomplete, Miss Grant.”

“I think they might have been married,” she tried to explain. “I changed my name legally to Grant for competitions.”

“Your father, whoever he was, didn’t marry your mother,” Blofeld stated kindly. “It would be in the folder. It is peculiar you are not. No, I wouldn’t give him any consideration. Besides, ‘Zoe Grant’ sounds distinguished.” He discarded the folder on the sofa and picked up his glass of Prosceco and held it over the table in between them. Sensing what he wanted, she clinked glasses with him and he smiled triumphantly at her. “To you, Zoe Grant.”

He took a sip and she followed suit, feeling the bubbles in her nose. She laughed a little at the feeling.

When he looked at her in question, she merely said, “It’s certainly easier to say.”

He had a striking face that became handsomer with the more Prosceco she drank. It was him who poured her her third glass, not the butler, and he came and sat beside her. Her legs were tucked underneath her, despite her short skirt, and he pressed his glass to hers. “To the songbird,” he saluted.

“You haven’t heard me sing,” she argued.

“We have no piano here,” he agreed, “but let me see that throat. You’re wearing that ridiculous scarf.”

“It’s Hermes,” she countered, but she didn’t stop him when he untied it.

He ran a finger down her neck and she shivered. Immediately, she took another large drink of Prosceco. Taking the half-empty glass from her, he filled it to the rim and gave it back. To be polite, she took another sip. She could get rather used to the bubbles.

“I would hear you sing a love song.”

“In Italian?” she teased and then laughed. Zoe wasn’t sure why she found it so silly. The lights were hazy and his eyes were not as distinct as before despite being such a vivid blue.

However, he laughed with her. “In Italian,” he agreed. “Or German.”

“German!” she pronounced. “Not in English?”

He looked at her earnestly, his head slightly tilted as if in thought, and then he took her glass. “I’ll sing you a love song in German and you can tell me how you like it.”

“You haven’t warmed up—” she began to argue, but he leaned forward and kissed her. Zoe wasn’t certain what to do with her hands or her lips, for that matter. She was aware of his moving, and her brain slowly realized he was putting down their champagne glasses before his fingers rested on her left cheek and ran into her hair. 

Blofeld pulled away and Zoe just remained sitting there, her eyes closed, and then his hand began moving through her hair gently, combing through it. She only realized he was going to kiss her again when there was breath upon her cheek and then his lips were touching hers again, so soft, and they were gone, then there, and he was kissing her again and again, and she wasn’t certain what to do, so she opened her eyes.

“Ernst?” she asked.

“Einfach fühlen,” he whispered into her ear, and he wanted her to just feel, she knew enough German for that, and she let him press her down against the couch and when he kissed her again, she kissed him tentatively back.

…

He was a kind yet forceful lover. Blofeld knew exactly what he wanted. At one point he demanded that her hands be stretched over her head and that she not move, even though his fingers were skating down her ribcage. Zoe had a haze memory of standing in her heels, her feet arching out of them so that only her toes were still touching the soles, her body pressed up against glass as his naked torso pressed up against her back.

“Don’t touch me,” he lovingly whispered as his two hands grabbed hers, their fingers interlacing. “It should just be our bodies holding ourselves up and the air caressing our bodies.”

Funny, she thought he said it in French. She couldn’t be certain. Zoe knew too many languages.

“Comprends-tu?” he asked into her haze filled mind as he thrust carefully into her, causing her to arch even further upward, her head rolling back onto his shoulder.

“Oui, oui,” she whispered. “Je comprends.”

…

Zoe didn’t realize that she was in a bed or naked until she woke up with her head pounding and needed to vomit. She fell out of the bed, grabbed a sheet with a hard yank, and ran to the nearest door, which happened to lead to a hallway. There was the man with the suit standing there and he was the last person she wanted to see.

Slamming the door, which only hurt her head, she ran to the next door, which fortunately led to the toilet. As she was emptying her stomach, she felt someone pull back her hair.

“Hush, now,” the familiar voice of Ernst Blofeld soothed. “I’m here.”

“What’s happening?” she asked in confusion. Then she heaved again and Zoe felt absolutely miserable.

“Your mother never told you?” he asked kindly. When she shook her head, he sighed. “You had a little too much to drink. It seems that three glasses of champagne made you horribly drunk. I thought I was getting you tipsy. I’m sorry, Zoe.”

When she thought it was over, he pulled her up and let her brush her teeth, and then carried her back to bed. He found her some aspirin, ordered the man in the suit to bring a large glass of water, and shut all the curtains.

She finally emerged around noon after a long shower with Blofeld. Someone had picked up all the pieces of her uniform and she put them on carefully in front of a mirror. He kissed her languidly before she had to go, threatening any boy with bodily harm if they came near her.

“I don’t think anyone wants to be my boyfriend, Ernst. I don’t speak the same language,” she reminded him as they stood on the balcony in the shadows, waiting for Uncle Jeremy to arrive.

Blofeld looked at her. “You’re too beautiful by half, Zoe Grant. The boys in this city would have to be blind not to want you.” He ran a hand through her drying hair which was straight unlike her mother’s curls.

She paused, looking out over the crumbling yet beautiful buildings. “When do you leave Rome?”

“Three days. With your permission, I’ll have Enforcer Grant bring you to me when it’s feasible. He won’t know it’s me—I would prefer it if you didn’t tell him. All he’ll know is that it’s orders from higher up.”

“Mum won’t like it,” Zoe admitted. “Someone from this organization took an interest in her and she fought about it once with Uncle Jeremy. She claims it ruined her life.” That I ruined her life, was left unsaid. 

Blofeld looked at her. “It need not ruin yours.”

“No,” she agreed. “I suppose not.”

She was looking out over the horizon of buildings, when he turned her head gently to look at him. “Would that be enough for you, to be my mistress?” he asked her sincerely.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend before,” she told him honestly. “I’d never been kissed before. What does it mean?” she asked him honestly.

Looking at Zoe, Blofeld traced the line of her jaw. “This would be mine,” he whispered. Next he kissed her lips. “Those would be yours.”

She turned fully toward him and looked into his eyes that were so like her own. Briefly she wondered if she had any Germanic heritage, though she thought it unlikely. Her mum often said they weren’t like Americans who couldn’t trace back what country they were even from, a land of immigrants, that true Englishmen knew the land of their fathers and that it had been that way for centuries. No, her eyes were English even if they were as blue as his. Still, she looked into his eyes and she saw only an openness to them.

Placing her hands on either side of his face, she stroked his temples. “And this? Is this mine?”

“As much as I can give you,” he promised, taking her head in between his hands. She rested her cheek against the large palm of his hand to show that she trusted him. “You know that I am an important man and there are some secrets I must keep.”

“But what I can have, I may have? Not some other girl who is in the balcony who is biting her lip?”

He smiled at her, the look making his face youthful, and she grinned back at him. “As long as I may have what’s between my hands.”

“You’ll have too many song lyrics in more languages than you know even though you were sitting at that table with Chinese and French and who knows what else spoken!” she joked, laughing with him. When she sobered, she whispered, “Why did you get me drunk?”

Blofeld gave her a sad smile, the first she had seen on him. “I am a powerful man, but you didn’t know that. I suppose I could have given you diamonds or clothes, but I did not want to buy your affections. I instead wanted to share a glass of champagne with a beautiful woman.”

“You kept pouring,” she murmured, a tear in her eye. “I can barely remember my first time. I remember after, in the shower, and then when we discarded our towels, and again when you were dressing me…” Her voice drifted off as she thought about how she had chosen to make love to him again. It had been the look in his eye that had made the decision. He looked like he adored her, and she had wanted to kiss him. So she kissed him.

“I’m old enough to be your father,” he told her quietly, leaning in to kiss her but she pulled away.

Hurt crossed his face, but he didn’t move forward again. 

“We give dinners where the wine flows and it’s not unheard of for the men to drink their scotch and for women to get drunk. I’m used to it. It’s not an excuse. I just wanted to see you to continue smiling and not get a headache.—He’s here.”

Without answering him, she accepted his words. “I’m afraid I’ve missed a day of classes,” she sighed.

“I’m sure you had a family emergency or came down with food poisoning,” he consoled her as he led her off the balcony and handed her over to the man in the suit. He squeezed her hand once, a nearly imperceptible signal, and she squeezed back. All was well with them.

When she saw Uncle Jeremy, she ran up to him and hugged him. “My hair’s a little wet,” she apologized. “I took a shower earlier.”

Uncle Jeremy looked her over critically. “Why did you spend the night?”

“I—well—it’s a bit embarrassing. I think it was champagne that they gave me and I got a little sleepy, so I was given a room.”

“Why was there champagne?” he asked slowly, looking into her blue eyes. Zoe had always wondered where she had inherited them from, her mother and both her uncles had brown eyes, so they must have come from her father, whoever he was. 

“To celebrate new friendships. I wasn’t punished for being there, Uncle Jeremy. Now, why don’t we go home? I’d rather put on something other than my uniform.”

He didn’t look at all convinced, but he let her go. She got into the opposite side of the car, seeing her bag which she had left there the night before, and she pulled her hair into her hands. It was still damp. Zoe closed her eyes and thought of Blofeld and tried not to smile at the thought of his large hands skating over her body.

…

Zoe was in her room. Mum was making breakfast, or what she called breakfast, and Zoe was putting on lipgloss that held a little more glisten than chapstick. It wasn’t permitted by the rules even though girls still wore this brand (Dionisia had given it to her the day before and she was going to sneak her some money at third period), but the trick was getting it past Mum. Zoe was only allowed to wear basic cover up because of teenage woes. She wished she could have rouge or, better, tanner.

“Waffle!” Mum shouted and Zoe put the gloss away without putting it on. She’d try to manage it between getting out of the car and going into school.

Coming out, Zoe didn’t pay attention when there was a knock on the door. Occasionally someone would come for Uncle Jeremy instead of texting him, and Mum did—something. Zoe asked once and was yelled at, so she never did again.

Mom was in a negligee and a semi opaque kaftan and she opened the door to the man in the suit.

Zoe was just passing and when she saw him, she stopped in shock.

“Waffle,” her mother told her, and Zoe didn’t need telling twice. She just hoped it was edible.

“Miss Grant does not need a waffle. Breakfast will be provided for her.” The man spoke with a heavy Russian accent and Zoe looked between him and her mother.

Emilia Grant pushed her dark brown curls away from her face. “I beg your pardon?”

“She’s required. Miss Zoe Grant will be provided with breakfast and will be dropped off at her seminary in time for her first class in about an hour, Miss Grant. Now, Miss Zoe. If you would get your things.” His black eyes looked at her and for a moment she just stood there.

“Zoe!” Mum shouted. “Go to your room!”

Uncle Jeremy walked into the kitchen/living room. “No, go get your bag and phone, Zoe. You’re needed.”

Mum looked at him, completely shocked.

“She’s gained someone’s attention. I’ve had assurances she won’t be harmed.”

Her brown eyes wide, Mum just stared at him. “You know what Oberhauser is like. Imagine his advisors or his top executives—the ones who can pull this with Zoe! Darling,” she grabbed Zoe’s arm. “Do you know this man?” She gestured to the one in the suit, who was smoothing out his goatee.

“Well,” Zoe answered carefully, “we’ve spoken. I don’t know his name.”

Mum looked—angry—at Zoe. 

“Get your bag,” Uncle Jeremy said and Zoe didn’t need to be told twice.

When she came out the man in the suit was waiting inside the door and Mum was seething at Uncle Jeremy. “I will not have her marry one of the top men at the organization and live the life I was supposed to live. Look at her, she’s beautiful. I’ve done everything to allow her to slip into normal society, not into a life of crime.”

The man with the suit placed his hand on Zoe’s shoulder when she stopped in shock, and she startled when the door closed behind them. She looked back and saw she was all alone with the man. Quickly, she got out her lipgloss and put it on. When the man looked at her, she said, “Mum won’t allow it.”

He nodded once and held out his hand so that she would precede him.

There was a limo waiting on the small Italian street and the back door was held open for her. She took a breath and slid in.

“We meet again,” Blofeld greeted.

Despite everything, Zoe laughed. “Mum’s quite upset. Something about someone she’s yelled about once or twice.” She sighed and then put down her bag. She saw that there was a place for a bottle of champagne to cool. “We’re not drinking this early in the morning?” she asked. “My teachers will notice. I have to sing.”

“I know,” he told her, taking out a bottle of water and three different types of breakfast of bars. “No dairy.”

She laughed and kissed him, liking the feel of the lipgloss against his mouth. When she pulled away, the car was moving and his hands were moving up her back so his upper arms were pressed against the length of it. “You looked it up.”

“My one and only, it turns out, won a junior national award in Britain, placed ninth in France just two years ago before she aged out, and is being watched in the opera world by several noted conductors. You’re rated fourth in Europe, which includes ten-year-old boy tenors.”

“I hate them,” she stated seriously, and he laughed.

“I gathered that,” he joked before he leaned up and kissed her again. It was slow and languid and Zoe fell into it. 

She let him guide the kiss and when he pulled away, she pushed into it. He ran a hand down her cheek. 

“You need to eat,” he reminded her. “I may be many things, but I will not clip your wings, songbird.”

Looking at him perceptively, she pulled away and let him guide her to a seat. She didn’t object when he hooked her in and she looked at the three breakfast bars, getting confused by the Italian ingredients, before choosing based on the picture of chocolate on one of them. Taking a bite, she smoothed out the foil. “When did you learn English?”

“When I was about five,” he admitted. “I lived in Scotland.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Really? I didn’t know. I know nothing about you. Where are you from?”

“Zurich,” he told her. “I usually tell people, ‘Germany’ as I spent some time there when I was young. However, it was Zurich.”

She smiled at him. “I’ve never been.”

“No,” he agreed, reaching out to her and tracing her throat as if it held secrets. “Perhaps I will take you some day.”

Folding the piece of wrapping so that the creases were perfect, she set it aside and took a large gulp of water. Water was the stuff of life as a vocalist. He sat back and smiled at her. 

“We have thirty-five minutes until your first bell rings,” Blofeld noted, as he looked at his watch. “Do you want to see if we can keep your scarf in place?”

“Ernst,” she sighed. “You’re not being romantic.”

He opened his hands. “Perhaps not. Then again, you won’t have to move at all, my dear, after our initial positioning.” Blofeld moved forward and took her water from her and kissed her lightly. He then went up to the partition and knocked.

Two minutes later they were parked.

Unhooking his seatbelt, Zoe looked at him and then did the same. Unzipping his pants, he then told her, “Take off your panties.”

She looked at him for a long moment and then maneuvered them off. Zoe wished she had been more graceful, at one point one of her legs was nearly up in the air, but they got off in the end. Blofeld took them and, without asking, put them in his pocket. It was then that she realized that he was open to the air. 

“Come, my dear,” he told her, holding his hand out to her. 

Zoe knelt on either side of him, and then he was guiding himself into her. As soon as they were joined, her head fell back and she breathed out. Then it was him who was moving, just small circles, but she could feel it. She grasped his shoulders and his hands were on her hips. Zoe wasn’t sure, but there might be fingersized bruises there that night. 

Their foreheads were pressed together and then he was leaning up toward her and she was kissing him. His warm blue eyes met hers, connecting them.

They were still, just breathing each other, when an alarm went off.

Blofeld was quiet for a moment, but then he said, “We have five minutes.”

He never emerged from the limousine although it garnered looks from her classmates when she stepped out of it, with her scarf in place and lipgloss on her singer’s mouth. Her panties remained in his pocket.

…

“Where’s Mum?” Zoe asked when she got home that night.

Uncle Jeremy was cleaning a gun and looked at the clock. He recorded the time. They both thought it was ridiculous, but her mother insisted if she got a ride home from a friend after school that he record the time, otherwise something might happen. She was not to be trusted.

Her father was not to be trusted. She might have inherited something.

Mum had been wild enough to fall into his arms. Now Zoe might be susceptible—

\--Not that she was wrong. She could feel her thighs move together without underwear. Zoe had to be very careful about sitting during the day, and she couldn’t even jog to see her friends across the lunchroom in case she flashed anyone. 

“Your mother,” Uncle Jeremy told her, “wants you to move in with your Uncle Charles.” His voice was dead and it was clear he thought it would never happen.

Of course it wouldn’t. Her mother—took employment illegally somehow—and had been the mistress of a criminal who was probably wanted internationally. She’d even born his child. Uncle Jeremy also worked for the same criminal enterprise. Now, despite everything, Zoe was part of it.

“So, now that we know you’re staying here with me,” Uncle Jeremy continued, “and all of the executives and their advisors are flying out of Italy later this week, where does this leave you?” He looked up at her with his brown eyes.

“I—well—” she began. “Have you noticed that everyone—even cousins Charlie and Alex—has brown eyes and I don’t?” Setting down her messenger bag, she moved toward her uncle, smoothed her skirt underneath her, and then sat down carefully. 

Uncle Jeremy continued to clean his gun. “You’re deflecting.”

“Perhaps I am.—”

Uncle Jeremy looked at her for a long moment. “His name isn’t Oberhauser, is it? Whoever it is thinks you’re ‘Grant’ but Oberhauser is vain. He likes using his birth name with women as far as I can tell. I still don’t know who Oberhauser is and he’s your father, not that your mother would ever admit it.”

Zoe blinked. “No, Uncle Jeremy. I’ve never met anyone named ‘Oberhauser.’ I promise to tell you if I do.”

Taking her hand in his larger, grease stained one, dark brown eyes met blue. “Good girl. Now, go put on some underwear.”

…

The man in the suit was waiting for her Thursday when she came out of class. She saw her mum standing near him, looking at him with daggers in her eyes, but Zoe didn’t have a choice. There was an outline of a gun in the man’s suit jacket. Blofeld was good to her but he was a dangerous man—and he had asked her consent.

And she had given it.

“I practiced,” she told her mother, kissing her cheek. “I’ll do my music theory, I promise.”

“Don’t do this, Zoe—” Mum stated. “I did not give birth to you so you could be part of the organization. I did it so you were the one thing he and his cronies could not touch. You’re beneath them.”

Above them. It should have been: above them, Zoe thought. 

She gave her mother a strained smile and walked out of her arms and went to the man in the suit and stepped into the empty limo. There was a bottle of chilled water and several apples. Blofeld was probably being silly as apples were supposedly academic and a good afternoon snack. There were even warm washcloths for her hands if they got juicy.

It never hurt.

Her apple was only partially eaten when she arrived at an airfield and she set it aside and took a washcloth. Quickly applying her lipgloss, she stepped out of the limo where she saw a private jet with the steps still down. She looked at the man in the suit who gestured to the plane.

Smoothing out her hair, she walked forward and got onto the plane. 

There were half a dozen men on board. One was Asian, two were Black—he might have actually been from Africa given how dark his skin was and his cheekbones—

“My dear.” She turned to Blofeld’s voice and smiled. He was sitting at a private cushioned chair with a table, which had several papers on it.

“Aren’t you important?” she greeted. Zoe walked the few steps toward him, checked on the papers to see if there was any drying ink, and then sat down on top of them. 

This seemed to amuse him.

“You’re not being very subtle,” she informed him. “Picking me up at home, at my seminary.” Zoe folded her legs, holding her top one, her fingers splayed across her knee. “My uncle knows something is going on.”

“I don’t care about your uncle,” he stated a little harshly. “I’m about to fly to a different continent, songbird. I want to see my girlfriend, not speak intrigue.”

A few men looked over at them and he closed his eyes and seemed to visibly calm.

“I apologize; I know you’re concerned.” He placed a hand on top of hers. “Am I forgiven?”

She paused and then carefully nodded. “How long are you gone for?”

“A year? Two years? We’ll see each other again soon, though. I still haven’t heard you sing.” He smiled at her apologetically. “I so wanted to hear my songbird sing.”

Leaning forward, she smiled. Whispering in his ear, she murmured, “I can sing for you now.” She leaned back and then sang, “Take my hand, I’m a stranger in paradise.” Her voice filled the cabin, the high notes echoing against the windows. Seamlessly, she moved into the alto, and watched the surprise on Blofeld’s face before switching back into the Soprano part again. At one point, he took her hand and their fingers entwined. When she ended the first verse, Zoe smiled at him and asked, “Do you think that’s fourth in the world?”

“I have no doubt I will be attending galas where you are the premiere performer and operas written specifically with you as their muse when the time comes, songbird.” He kissed her hand. For some reason, he was being careful not to say her name. “Or do you want a recording contract?”

“No,” she answered, her thumb stroking his. “No, I want to move around a small group of people and look into their eyes and realize that my music has moved them in that exact moment. Small galas. I will not turn down lavish productions at opera houses, of course not. I’m trained for the stage, but I prefer the more intimate setting.”

“Do you, songbird?” he asked with a light in his blue eyes. “I’m afraid that if I am ever to bring you with me into a small gathering, it will be on my arm.”

She laughed. “That is something I have not experienced.—Now, when does your plane take off?”

“When I say it does,” he told her honestly.

Staring at him for a long moment, she realized he was entirely serious. “Ernst, you are the most surprising man.”

“What is surprising is that I am not abducting you, my dear. However, I understand how important your studies are. You should not have been removed from Wales even if you have a deplorable accent—but Italy has fine masters in the art of singing. I’ve put orders through to your Uncle Jeremy that I want progress reports.—I want you to succeed, songbird.”

Zoe looked at him. “Are you my fairy godfather as well as my lover?” she asked in a mock whisper.

“I don’t understand the reference,” he admitted.

“Never mind,” she told him. “Now, you must be off, I have music theory, and so I’ll kiss you goodbye and I expect you’ll send for me soon.”

She leaned forward and, playfully, kissed his nose before hopping off the desk and making to leave. Blofeld grabbed her arm and she laughed as he pulled her into a fuller kiss. She tried to memorize the taste of him, but she thought he must have been drinking some sort of alcohol. Zoe didn’t recognize the taste, but there was something about the tanginess to it that made her think of the smell of Uncle Jeremy’s scotch.

He pulled away and his blue eyes looked into hers with a question that she didn’t quite understand. 

“Goodbye, Mr. Blofeld,” she murmured with a smile and he stroked her cheek before letting her go.

She was locked in her room, a chair pressed against her door so she couldn’t leave even to go to the bathroom, and wasn’t let out until it was time to go to school the next morning. Zoe could hear her mum scream about Oberhauser and trying to extract a name from Uncle Jeremy, but even he couldn’t give her information he did not know.

…

It was her winter recital and her mum didn’t even go. She had work, whatever that was. Zoe was pumped full of adrenaline and after her third curtain call, when Doinisia came up to her and whispered that an admirer had left her flowers.

Zoe smiled and ran down the hall to where her friend had pointed and was surprised to see the man in the suit standing next to Uncle Jeremy.

“Two hours,” the man said to Jeremy who nodded, kissed her head, and left.

She was escorted to a smaller town car, and the passenger door was opened for her. Confused, she got in, and she was handed a single white rose.

“Ernst,” she greeted and he gave her an honest smile as he pulled away from the curb and drove away from the recital hall. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Of course I came,” he told her simply. “I had an afternoon off, and I know how important your dreams are to you, Zoe. And how could I not hear your sing? Now, you have the entire weekend.”

“Yes,” she answered, smelling the rose.

He smiled at her again, filtering into traffic. “Good. You’ll like France.”

She was the only woman on the plane. They were, in fact, the only two people on it. A hostess came through and served champagne and within twenty minutes Uncle Jeremy arrived with a suitcase and she stared at him in shock. He winked at her and left. Blofeld had gone to the back, never giving a reason, but it was perfectly timed so Uncle Jeremy didn’t see him. It seemed her romance with him was to be a secret, at least from the Grants.

“Songbird,” Blofeld asked casually when they had reached full altitude, “would you like to join the Mile High Club?” His blue eyes shone at her and she could only laugh. 

The lights had been dimmed and he took her barely touched glass, she had learned her lesson, and he crawled on top of her in her seat. Her breath came heavily in her black satin dress and she was hyper aware when his hand molded over her breast. Looking at him expectantly, she whispered, “Yours?” 

Placing her hand over his heart, he murmured, “No one touches my heart.”

A sadness crept over her and she nodded. She moved her hand to ghost over his lips.

Whispering, “yours,” he leaned down and kissed her there several miles in the air, with no one to see or hear. “What you do to me,” he told her as he hiked up her skirt and bent her knee. “I’ve never seen you with lipstick before.”

“I’m allowed at performances,” she told him, thinking of her dark red lips. “Do you like it?”

“I like the taste of your lipgloss,” he told her before he kissed her again, stealing her soul, his hands going between her legs and ripping her panties from her. When they became one with one great shove, she gripped onto him and let out a silent scream. 

He caught her on the way down and they sat next to each other breathing heavily. When the lights signaled their descent, she murmured, “My hair,” and she shakily got up to fix her hair, which had been up in a chignon. Blofeld had dug his fingers into it to angle her head up, and she could feel pieces falling against her cheek.

She descended on his arm, and enjoyed hearing French when they were greeted on the runway, naturally understanding every word. Zoe was never mentioned by name, merely “Mademoiselle.” It was clear that Blofeld valued his privacy and probably didn’t want anyone looking into her age. Although still in seminary she was already eighteen, but still. It could cause problems.

They didn’t go to a hotel. Instead they were taken to a villa in a vineyard. The owner didn’t realize that Zoe spoke French, not even Blofeld was aware, but he was kind enough to show her the large bedroom and the bathroom along with the state of the art bath tub with movements of his hands. 

Blofeld stood at the window, looking out at the garden when they were alone. “We have dinner in twenty minutes,” he told her. She already knew. She could understand, but she said nothing. “It’s casual. You don’t need to change unless you want to get out of those clothes.”

“I think I’ll find some underwear and refresh my lipstick,” she stated, “or see if Uncle Jeremy packed my lipgloss.” 

Looking up, she found his eyes raking over her. He pushed her up against the bathroom door, and ran his hands up her leg. “I’m so glad women no longer wear hose.”

“Hose?” she laughed. “No, no we don’t.”

He kissed her hungrily as if he were afraid he would lose her and she grabbed onto his tie. In the end he wanted to watch her get ready, and he inspected her paltry tube of lipstick and declared her could buy her better as she refreshed her lips. Taking down her hair, he ran his fingers through it, their eyes connecting in the mirror. Zoe found it eerie how they were nearly identical colors of blue. Still, it was Blofeld who washed between her legs and held open her panties so she could step into them. Zoe fixed his tie for him, as she had often done for her Uncle Jeremy, and Blofeld smiled at the gesture.

“Do you think I’m presentable?”

“Quite,” she agreed, “and all that in twenty minutes.”

Blofeld looked at his watch. “We may have kept our hosts waiting slightly. Come, my dear.”

Dinner was almost funny. The conversation flowed in French, and she sat there eating her lamb and just listening. They were staying with a Monsieur Le Chiffre. She didn’t know the woman’s name. 

Le Chiffre turned to her. “Как вам нравится ваш ужин?”

She looked at him in confusion as she only sang in Russian and then glanced at Blofeld. Finally, she turned to her host and asked in English, “Was that Russian? I’ve performed in the language, but never actually spoken it.” Placing her hand on her untouched wine glass, she pretended to take a sip of it.

Le Chiffre’s eye weeped, but he ignored it. “Forgive me. The rumor was that Mr. Blofeld had found an Eastern European beauty. I took a calculated guess and thought you might be from Mother Russia herself and not one of the other countries from the former Soviet Union.”

“Hardly,” she disagreed. “Do I even look Russian, Monsieur Le Chiffre?” Her perfect French accent when she spoke his name didn’t elicit a response from him. 

He took her in. “Your clothes certainly don’t suggest it, Mademoiselle. You’re not from Scotland, but you’re British, I believe.”

“I’m Welsh. Few can determine the accent.” She gave him a tight smile and put down her glass.

The woman turned to her. “I am from Georgia,” she stated in a heavy Eastern European accent. 

Zoe tilted her head. She wanted to ask if the woman dyed her hair because it couldn’t possibly be that shade of blonde naturally, but she wouldn’t be rude. 

“I tried to convince Le Chiffre,” her voice stumbled over the words, “to entertain Mr. Blofeld on his yacht, but he did so insist on here.”

Blofeld, who had been watching Zoe speculatively, finally entered the conversation. “I didn’t want the temperature changes to hurt Mademoiselle’s voice. She’s an internationally ranked opera singer and I have to get her back. I don’t want her conductor penalizing me by giving her extra rehearsals when there might be other stolen weekends.” His eyes weren’t laughing, but were certainly mischievous. He was enjoying himself. Clearly he was teasing her.

“Maestro wouldn’t be so cruel,” she teased back. “Though you did nearly whisk me off stage. I’m still wearing black and I’ve been told it’s not my color. Don’t object—” she put up her hand. “I never wear the color outside of singing.”

“Vous avez l'aire enchanteuse, Mademoiselle,” Le Chiffre complimented her, holding out his glass.

She merely picked up hers and took a small sip. It took everything in her not to cough.

The men retired to a private study and Valenka offered to show Zoe the gardens. Frankly, her feet were hurting in her heels, it was after midnight, but she smiled and agreed. It was only later that she was able to escape and go to bed. However, she didn’t have any pajamas. Her uncle had packed one of her mother’s negligees. 

Holding it up to herself in the mirror, Zoe sighed. Resigning herself to it, she put it on and was glad that at least it was champagne colored and not black. There was a matching robe that she placed at the end of the bed. 

She was awakened to Blofeld’s warm hand on her stomach, and she sighed. “What on earth was I drinking at dinner?”

“Pinot Noir,” he told her as he kissed her shoulder.

“Well, it’s rather dreadful,” she told him as he kissed the side of her neck. “I only had a sip of it and I nearly coughed.”

“I don’t think that wine is the correct alcohol for you, my dear. We shall simply have to experiment and find something you like.” His hand wandered down her hip and she could see where he was going. The scent of scotch wandered off his breath, and she was learning to like the smell. 

“Ernst,” she teased, turning into him. “Aren’t you tired?”

“I find I am like a young man when I have you in my arms,” he murmured against her skin, confusing her, but she didn’t object when he stripped off her mother’s negligee and let her unbutton his white shirt and undo his tie. In the end, it didn’t matter that she didn’t have her pajamas.

…

“You’re being careful, right?” Her mother had made a full bowl of pasta and expected Zoe to eat it all to keep up her strength. Zoe thought it was so she wouldn’t fit into her clothes and would be less attractive to Blofeld.

Zoe looked up from her pasta. “Careful?”

“You’re someone’s plaything, right?” Mum asked casually. “You’ve now been flown somewhere in the world. Someone wanted you in their bed or at least on their arm. You’re using condoms.”

Flushing, Zoe looked her mother directly in the eye. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Italy doesn’t allow abortion.”

What Mum didn’t know was that Blofeld had taken her to a doctor who had inserted an IUD so she couldn’t become pregnant in the next five years. “It’s easier than the pill,” he had said, “and this way we don’t have to worry about condoms.” He’d paid with cash so the man wouldn’t ask for proof of identity or age. The thing was still giving her some slight cramps, but she was told it would go away in a few days.

…

Summer came and Blofeld wanted to take her away to Vienna where there was an internationally recognized vocal teacher who was willing to give her lessons after hearing her perform. Mum was screaming when she was given the news and had to be sedated by the man in the suit who had, strangely, come prepared. Uncle Jeremy looked at her with his deep brown eyes and simply asked her if this is what she wanted.

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “I don’t know what it’s like living with a man. Still, Maestro Liev is highly renowned.”

“Men show more emotions. It’s not all pretty parties and champagne and—making love,” he told her. “It’s living. You’ll have a maid who will hear you argue. He’s older than you, he’s had other mistresses and he’ll expect you to be as cultured, he’ll want you on your arm, saying intelligent things.”

“I’m his songbird,” she whispered. “And you told them I only speak English. I’m pretending I don’t understand people half the time.” 

Uncle Jeremy took her arm and led her into her room and closed the door. “You’ll see your mother,” he explained carefully. “She’s loaned out from man to man for a night. She’s rarely taken out of Italy since she got here but word has it that SPECTRE is being based in Germany or even Austria for the summer. You could see her there.”

“I don’t want to see her,” Zoe stated emphatically. “She’ll start yelling about Oberhauser and he doesn’t even know Oberhauser is my father. What if they’re friends? What if they hate each other? This is such a nightmare.” She looked down at the ground, chewing on her thumbnail, before nodding. She went back to the man in the suit. “I can’t,” she stated. “I can’t go. Tell him I’m sorry.”

The man looked at her with his black eyes, searching for something, and then left.

Blofeld, however, wasn’t one to simply take a refusal without a reason. 

He came, strangely, in the middle of the night. Their door was broken down, and everyone was roused out of their beds, hoods put over their eyes, and Zoe thought that surely the Polizia had something on Uncle Jeremy and this was the end of it. She tried to bite the man’s hand off when she was gagged, but his fingers moved adeptly as if he had done this hundreds of times before, and he fortunately didn’t slap her. Someone else was slapped. She could hear skin connecting with skin.

Her breath came in short puffs. Zoe was absolutely terrified. 

She knew she was taken out to a van of some sort because she was rustled in, after her feet were strangely put into slippers, and then she could feel it moving. Someone buckled her in—strange—and there was no one sitting beside her. This was a peculiar abduction. Where was her uncle? Her mum? Surely she shouldn’t be alone. She had seen someone take her mother out of her room in her negligee. Why would they be separated?

Stranger still, Zoe wasn’t brought to some back room with a table and a swinging light hanging from the ceiling. Instead, she was set down in a plush chair, her hands untied, and the bag taken off her head.

Blofeld was sitting across from her. Her eyes widened, but he merely took the gag out of her mouth and pushed it down so it was hanging around her neck.

He was dressed casually in a black turtleneck and gray slacks. She had only ever seen him in suits before. Strangely this looked good on him.

She could tell by the darkness outside the window that it was still night.

“Ernst?” she asked in a horrified whisper. “What’s going on?”

“I had to see you,” he told her simply, “and get you away from your uncle and mother. It seemed sending one of my men had them still influencing you—so I merely removed them from the equation. Now, why don’t you want to go to Vienna?”

“Ernst,” she demanded, her voice still quiet. “You had me kidnapped in the middle of the night!”

“It’s Friday,” he told her as if it were reasonable. “If you were in school your studies would not suffer.—Still, I had to get you away, my dear, and not have them notice. They’re being held and probably wondering what is occurring and only after you’ve told me what’s happening will I decide what questions will be put to them.”

“If you want to talk to me, call my mobile,” she whispered, still a little terrified. “I’m your girlfriend, not an enemy of SPECTRE!”

His head shot up. “How do you know that name?”

“I—” she began. “I think I heard it somewhere. Ernst, please. This is ridiculous.”

“Songbird, you cannot know that name. It’s very dangerous.” He was looking at her very intently now, his eyes no longer warm and charming, but hard and earnest.

“Very well,” she stated cautiously. “However, I am not your enemy. You can’t terrorize me just because I won’t go to Vienna with you!”

He ignored her, addressing only the question of Vienna. “You haven’t given me a reason. Do you suddenly think I’m too old? Do I make too many demands on your time?”

“You only flew me out of Italy once, Ernst,” she told him, a little confused.

“That’s not what I meant,” he told her carefully.

“Then say what you mean,” she demanded, tugging on the gag and pulling it over her head until it was completely off. “I’m not a woman of twenty-five or thirty who understands the nuances of romantic language. I’m sorry, but I’m not. I can never be on your arm and charming, having read all of Shakespeare and have half of it memorized. I don’t speak five languages—” Well, that was a lie, but he didn’t know that.

“You are a young woman of enormous talent,” he told her, taking her two small hands in his larger ones. “You can arrest a room with your song. That entire plane fell silent when you sang to me. The auditorium hung on your every note. You could talk around any one of my associates when it came to composers and musical theories and styles. Dear one, look at me.”

She hadn’t even realized she’d been looking down at their hands.

“Is that what frightens you?”

“Mum will be there,” she whispered. “Uncle Jeremy said that she dates men from the organization.”

Blofeld closed his eyes. “Yes, I had heard. I’ve made sure your paths haven’t crossed up to this point. Is this what worries you?”

“Do you know how much food she’s making me eat?” she suddenly blurted. “I’ve been pretending that my lessons have been scheduled later so I can run around the track just to fit into my clothes. She’s trying to make me unattractive. She says she’s tried to make me beneath the organization. That I’m just a common performer. This is all just one big mess, Ernst.”

He paused for a moment before leaning forward and kissing her brow. “I’ll allow her to come to some minor events. I have authority in guest lists and can vet people’s dates. You won’t attend those events. The more glamorous and sought after parties, you will be on my arm as long as they do not conflict with your studies, and you will still only be ‘Mademoiselle.’ I trust Le Chiffre, but not his lovely girlfriend, Valenka, not to drop your name.—You will not see your mother and there should be no repercussions. You are also not beneath me or anyone else, Zoe. I am beneath you. I am a common criminal, no matter how wealthy and no matter the circles I travel in. You are one of the most sought after vocalists still in training. You have the world at your feet.” He kissed her hands again.

“Are you mon patron?” she asked.

Blofeld laughed. “Not quite.—Are there any other concerns?”

“What is it like? To live as a man and a woman?” she whispered, leaning into him.

“You will see me at my worst,” he admitted, “and I will see you at your best. I will not ask you to be my hostess. You are so young and you must concentrate on your art. I have the most beautiful piano for you. Now, will you come? I’ve never even determined if you like fashion, but I promise you an entire new wardrobe for the summer and all the red lipstick you could want, even though I prefer that Italian lipgloss.”

“Mum never let me have pretty things,” she admitted. “She didn’t want me to become wild.”

“Well, perhaps it was time you became just a little wild yourself, songbird,” he whispered.

…

Zoe found herself in a limousine having had a full breakfast at a little restaurant in the city, clothes having been provided, and then dropped off at her uncle’s flat. The door was repaired, but her family was missing. They remained missing for four whole days, during which food was periodically delivered to her.

When they finally arrived it was in their sleep clothes, their mouths gagged, and they were pushed through the door.

Zoe stared at them. Their hands were roughly untied and the door slammed shut before they could take the bags off of their heads. Mum looked at her wild eyed, slapped her once, and then went into the bathroom where the shower ran.

“What happened?” Zoe asked.

“It appears you caught the eye of a very powerful man,” Uncle Jeremy stated. “He’s not happy with your mother, from what I can tell. They just kept me locked up and fed me three meals a day, telling me Emilia was being difficult so they had to hold me longer.”

“I should have just said I was going to Vienna,” Zoe whispered, biting her lip.

Uncle Jeremy came over and hugged her, despite his stench. “That was my fault, darling. Still, you should probably pack your bags.”

She didn’t need to. They were already packed.

…

Blofled found it amusing how conservative she was in dress. She wore primarily dresses that came halfway down her calf, never straps or strapless despite the heat, and she wore trousers instead of shorts. “My nun,” he called her once, until she refused to kiss him for an entire day.

The flat was the entire story of a building that took up an entire block in the center of Vienna. The rooms were opulent, the paintings stunning, and the filigree was so beautiful Zoe was afraid to touch it. There was a cook for them and two maids and a butler who always had Monsieur’s whiskey ready for him. 

Zoe had a taste for it, she discovered, and would sip off his glass, her lipgloss leaving a shimmer on it to his delight. 

She sang every morning for three hours and attended concerts many of the nights at her maestro’s behest. Blofeld could rarely join her, and on her nights off she was always at parties at various locations. 

“Monsieur Le Chiffre,” she greeted one afternoon when she came home. “I hadn’t expected you.”

“Nor I, you,” he told her, taking her hand and kissing it. “Do convince Blofeld to come to my yacht this summer. You will positively enjoy the swimming, I am sure.”

“You want to have a rematch on that poker game,” Blofeld joked as he came up and Zoe smiled at him.

“Poker?”

“Le Chiffre likes to harbor outside of Monte Carlo,” Blofeld told her, “and enjoys gambling. I daresay I would love to see you in evening gowns that aren’t in muted colors, if I could ever convince you of it.” It was true. Zoe preferred dark purples and blues in her evening dresses. She did even have a forest green.

“Yes,” Le Chiffre agreed, “the bright jewels of Monte Carlo are one of its many attractions. Eyes like yours could easily make a man forget the hand he’s playing.”

She paused, uncertain what to say at first. Perhaps that was his intention. “How kind,” she settled on. 

He switched into French. He was talking about Poker and a man named Bond who was proving a nuisance internationally. Blofeld began to lead him into one of the parlors, and Zoe turned toward her own part of the flat, when his hand came out and grabbed hers. She looked down in surprise, but followed the two men into the smoking room where she was handed her own glass of whiskey, which she sipped at carefully as it was still early in the day.

Something, near the end, caught her attention.

“Emilia is in town,” Le Chiffre stated carefully, his finger circling the rim of his near empty glass. “I know how much you dislike her.”

“I heard the most peculiar rumor. She’s been dating my men in secret, though I don’t know for how long, and now she dares to come to Vienna. I won’t allow her at any of the more exclusive functions, of course. It wouldn’t do for her to be seen by the wrong people.” He took a sip of his drink and glanced at Zoe who smiled at him, trying to make it look innocent.

Le Chiffre followed his gaze. “Is she still beautiful?”

“Je ne sais pas,” Blofeld answered dismissively, “and I don’t care.”

…

She saw Le Chiffre again nearly a fortnight later. 

Zoe was rather tired from a night at a ball given by SPECTRE where she had danced with men whose faces she couldn’t remember, officials disappearing into back rooms to discuss human trafficking and smuggling, a swirl of colors. She had opened the gala with Blofeld, the lines of his body against hers, the swell of her breast against his smooth chest, every breath she took in sync with his heartbeat, just the two of them as everyone watched.

Now she was going into a small café to work on her compositions. Liev had her composing music for a soprano and alto quartet and she preferred listening to chatter as music played through her head. It was only later that she would play it on the piano. 

She was sipping her black coffee when someone took the chair opposite her.

“Zoe. I thought you’d be here somewhere.”

She looked up and saw her mum as beautiful as ever, though with a face that bespoke her age. She was a classic beauty, her face a bit hardened. Zoe’s face was fresher. She looked much younger than she was except for her defined features and mature figure. Everyone thought she was a mature fifteen. Sometimes she wondered how old Blofeld thought she was.

“Mum,” she stated, closing her book. “I was doing my homework.”

Emilia Grant ignored her for a moment and watched the customers. “I forgot. Your sugar daddy is paying for your schooling.” Her voice was rather nasty. 

“I have a scholarship,” she told her. “I applied for it last Fall, remember? I applied for a European Scholarship? It’s being applied to this.”

Her mum snapped at her. “I don’t care. Who are you here with? You little whore.”

Zoe blinked.

“He had us kidnapped in the middle of the night. I’m barred from the most exclusive events. Men have dropped me—”

“Are you a prostitute?” Zoe asked unkindly. “Escort, I should say? I have a boyfriend. I can walk away at any time and have a life with a profession, which you have been kind enough to give me. No, wait, I’ve earned it myself with sheer talent.”

“I am your mother!” she whispered dangerously and then her face fell.

Feeling a presence behind her, Zoe looked up and saw Monsieur Le Chiffre. “Bonjour, Monsieur,” she greeted. “I believe you know Emilia Grant.”

“I do,” he agreed. “I did not realize you were at all related. Are you well, Mademoiselle Grant? I understood you were working on a project this week.”

“Yes,” she answered. “I’m composing. Mum interrupted me.”

“I should have never sent you to that talent coach,” she hissed.

“You didn’t,” Zoe replied steadily. “Uncle Charles did after my choir director recommended it when I was six.”

Pulling up a chair, Le Chiffre smoothed down his tie and took a seat with the mother and daughter. “Valenka—oh, you are not aware, Miss Grant. Valenka is my girlfriend. Valenka, Mademoiselle, was just telling me how stunning she thought you looked last night. I quite agree. You bring a freshness to our gatherings that has been missing for so many years.”

“Well, for an organization that specializes in trafficking children, whoever her boyfriend is certainly likes them young,” Mum stated cruelly. “Did you know that he had us kidnapped, Monsieur Le Chiffre? Is this a way to treat valued members of the organization?”

“I’m sure he had his reasons,” he replied diplomatically.

She huffed.

He ignored Emilia. “You were kidnapped, Mademoiselle?”

“Well,” she stated, “they gave me slippers and I was taken to a room with comfortable furniture. Then I was taken to breakfast and finally back home. I made my displeasure known at my treatment. I thought it was a bit extreme since—certain parties—wanted to know why I initially refused to come to Vienna.”

“I hope you have not found any reason to regret your change of heart.”

“None,” she agreed, sipping her coffee, her eyes flitting to her mum. “I am studying with one of the premiere vocal coaches in Europe, I’m allowed to wear lipstick, and I have an excuse to dance.”

He smiled at her. “Well, you must give us a performance. I do not know if you’ve met Mr. Blofeld, our esteemed leader, but perhaps he might be convinced.” He turned to Mum. “Have you met Mr. Blofeld?”

Her eyes hardened, making the brown implacable. “Once or twice. I don’t want her alone with him.”

“Of course not,” he stated as if it were obvious. 

A gleam filtered through her mum’s brown eyes. “Then again, he might be interested to learn that my daughter’s name wasn’t always Zoe Grant. She changed it, you see, when a vocal coach suggested that judges would regard it more favorably than Zoe Oberhauser.” She smiled wickedly to herself. “I trust Mr. Oberhauser is still a friend of Mr. Blofeld and perhaps of yourself?”

Le Chiffre looked at her for several long moments and then clearly decided to ignore her. “Whatever her name, Mademoiselle should be able to sing for us in the organization. Important men and women will hear her. I would wager she thrives on the attention of it.” He winked at her with his good eye. “Now, Mademoiselle, may I escort you home? Your mother looks tired.” Le Chiffre stood fluidly and then pulled out her chair for her, although her coffee was only half finished.

Zoe picked up her composition book. When they were out on the street, she turned to him. “Thank you, Monsieur Le Chiffre. My mother can be quite jealous. When she is she brings up Oberhauser—who may or may not have been my father.”

“She does not know that you are residing with Mr. Blofeld,” he checked.

“No. Ernst doesn’t want anyone to know for some reason. No one knows my name, my family only knows that someone has taken an interest in me.”

Le Chiffre paused. “Does he know of your mother’s accusations?”

Zoe looked at him strangely. “Usually she’s drunk or in a rage. I have no reason to take her seriously. This is the first time she’s mentioned it to someone outside of the family.”

He took her arm and looked into her eyes, searching for something and then, carefully, nodded.

They turned toward the flat and walked down the street at a leisurely pace. “Perhaps that is for the best. Your family has a rich history with the organization and people might view it as undue favoritism. They wouldn’t understand.”

“I don’t understand,” she admitted. “My uncle wasn’t even invited and my mother’s a whore from what I can tell.”

Le Chiffre looked at her. “Best not to be associated then.”

When they entered the flat, Blofeld wasn’t home, but Le Chiffre wrote him a quick note in Italian—as if that stopped Zoe from realizing that he mentioned that he now knew she was Emilia’s daughter by, supposedly, Oberhauser and Emilia had found her—and then he left. 

Needless to say, Blofeld was not happy when he returned. He looked at the note and retreated to his smoking room with a cigar and a bottle of whiskey. He didn’t come out until it was time to change for dinner. He took one look at her and drew her onto the bed and kissed her deeply. “I don’t want to leave you,” he confessed as his hand traced her neck, his fingers dancing over the skin. “I want you up against the window where all Vienna might see us.”

“Don’t be wicked, Ernst,” she whispered, kissing his nose. “I saw Mum today.”

“I got Le Chiffre’s note,” he confessed darkly. “Your mother will be leaving tomorrow.”

“You can’t do that!” Her voice was low, afraid, but he hushed her with lips pressed to the corner of her mouth. 

His warm blue eyes looked down into hers. “You are too beautiful.—I will keep you safe and protected, my love. That means you will be away from that woman and her despicable lies.”

It took her a moment to hear it, but then she realized what he said. Sitting up quickly, she nearly bumped noses with him. Zoe took his face in her hands and pressed her thumbs to the corner of his eyes. “What is she lying about? I don’t understand.”

“I know Oberhauser,” he admitted. “I knew him when your mother was his—well, she was little better than his whore. There’s no way you could be his daughter. It’s preposterous.” Blofeld was holding her chin between his two fingers, looking into her blue eyes with his honest ones, a hope and a desperation in them.

“What does it matter then?” she asked desperately. “Le Chiffre would never betray you or whoever Oberhauser is.”

“No,” he agreed, releasing her chin and coming to sit next to her, though his eyes never left hers. “He never would. Still, others might use this information. She needs to leave Vienna, Zoe.”

There was a finality to the way he spoke that frightened her and she grabbed him by the lapels, smelling cigar smoke and whiskey, but she didn’t care. “Uncle Jeremy is an enforcer—I know what that means. You’re going to—My own mum all because she was some man’s whore twenty years ago.”

He looked up at her sharply and placed her hand on his heart, and she could feel how rapidly it was beating. “Don’t blame me, songbird. I’m trying to protect you.”

“From what?” she demanded. “A stupid rumor? Who is Oberhauser? Would it really have been that terrible if the night we met I had told you my name was Zoe Oberhauser?”

But he didn’t answer her, instead he pulled her toward him and he kissed her drunkenly. Everything about the kiss suggested desperation and neediness and a desire to forget the world. It wasn’t until her skin met the air that she realized he’d torn off her blouse and then his lips were on her breasts, teasing them, his hands pulling them out of the expensive French bra he had bought for her. He pinned her against the headboard, her legs hiked up over his shoulders, and it wasn’t about sweetness or something that in another lifetime could be called love or even passion, it was about trying to stay together in a storm that she didn’t even understand.

After she unhooked her bra (it was useless with the straps pulled down her arms, her breasts pulled from it completely), he rested his head against one. “Promise me you’ll never call yourself ‘Zoe Oberhauser’ again, not to me, not to yourself, not to anyone.”

“My mother’s as good as dead. What if my father wants to adopt me?” she mused.

“Promise me,” he begged, his hand coming up and tracing her neck.

For a long while she didn’t answer him. She just lay there and played with his hair.

“I meant what I said,” he finally murmured, “I will keep you safe and protected. No one can hurt you while I watch over you.”

She looked away from him, “Ernst—you have the power to hurt me more than anyone. My entire life is in your hands. I’ve never had a father. I’ll very soon be an orphan and you control my uncle.”

“Then marry me,” he proposed. “I’ve been sitting alone in that room smoking a cigar wishing to do nothing more than listen to you sing and then make love to you on the piano. Let me take you away from a jealous mother and obscurity. You’re be eighteen this September, aren’t you, songbird?”

She was already eighteen, having had to repeat a year because of mono, but she merely nodded. “We could get married on my birthday,” she suggested. “September twenty-sixth. Won’t that be special, Ernst? Mum always gets drunk but this will be a way to make it a celebration.”

He looked at her sadly and ran a hand through her hair. “Just so, my dear. But we must keep this private. Le Chiffre already knows you’re a Grant—”

“And you’re important,” she murmured. “I will never lie about being your wife.” Zoe looked at him directly in the eyes to show him that she meant what she said and he nodded.

“No, we’ll never lie about that. It will just be private. I don’t want you to be used against me. You’ll remain Zoe Grant professionally and I will come and hear you sing in a private box—”

“—and it will be as if we’re in a French novel and you are my patron,” she teased. “Do you want children?”

Their blue eyes met. “Only if they’re yours,” he swore. His hand ran down her throat again, his gaze following down her neck, and then he kissed it. She threw back her head and sighed when he set her down on the covers, apologizing as he had to get ready to go out.

…

Zoe didn’t go back to Italy as she might have but instead they stayed in Vienna for the rest of the summer even after SPECTRE broke up around July. She spent most of her time alone as Blofeld flew in and out of the country, but on a warm day in August, she had her IUD removed. 

Her mother and neither of her uncles were in attendance.

Still, she wore white and that favorite Italian lipgloss they both liked and when she was falling asleep in his arms, he actually whispered, “Te amo.” I love you.

…

“Your father wants you.”

Zoe Grant Blofeld stared at the man sitting across from her. His eyes were blue, it was odd how often she encountered blue eyes, but not as warm as hers or Blofeld’s. He had receding mahogany hair, a sharp nose, and was wearing a pinstripe suit. 

She swallowed. “I’m afraid I’m only in the country for a few more hours—”

“For a singing competition, yes, Miss Grant,” the man agreed, looking at his notes. “However, you are being detained.”

There was a pause. “Detained.”

“Yes. Detained.”

She really didn’t need this. Blofeld hadn’t sent word for nearly a fortnight, which was unlike him, and Zoe needed to mentally prepare herself for a competition tomorrow. She then had auditions—Blofeld would prefer her closer to Egypt and his headquarters—but he wouldn’t stop her career. They were partners and they would fuse their very different lives.

“Under whose authority do you detain me?” She was a bit bored with it all, with the play for power. All summer in Vienna, she had seen men and women flock around Blofeld, trying to gain his attention, the dates of unimportant men vying for her attention in the hopes that she could raise their fortunes. It was ridiculous.

“Her Majesty, the Queen’s,” this strange man told her in a dry voice. “You are a subject of the crown and as such we have the right to detain you from leaving the country.” She never had given up British citizenship. Zoe was now wishing that she had.

Her hand fluttered to her throat where she was so used to wearing a scarf. “I don’t think you understand—”

“Miss Grant,” he told her carefully. “Your father, if you are not aware, is an international criminal.”

Zoe looked up at him. Deciding to be truthful at least about this, she admitted, “I had heard one or two rumors.”

The man with the receding hairline’s eyes widened slightly, but he did not comment. Instead, he continued. “He is under the care of MI6. He is refusing to cooperate until we can produce his, and these are his words,” the man’s eyes connected with Zoe’s, “only living child. That appears to be you, Miss Grant.”

She settled into her seat. Oberhauser must have seen her with Blofeld and realized that she was his. This must be some sort of leverage. Debating what to do, she eventually stated, “I think I need protection.”

“You have MI6’s complete protection, Miss Grant,” the man assured her. “He can’t hurt you.”

Zoe looked at him. “I don’t think you understand. I think he’s trying to get to someone else through me—and he’s using you to do it. I’m married—and—well, I’m rather well placed.” Everyone smiled to her face, but she could see how one of the executives would have her detained and hold her hostage to get Blofeld’s attention. It was one of the reasons why they’d barely made their marriage public.

“Who is your husband?” the man with the pinstriped suit asked.

Turning her head, she simply asked back, “Who are you?”

“Mallory. Gareth Mallory. My designation is ‘M’. While you’re working with us, Miss Grant, you will be ‘Zed.’” Because of ‘Zoe.’ Of course. “However, you didn’t answer my question.”

She began to prevaricate again. “I’m not certain, but given how my mother reacts, I think he knows my father.” She placed her hand over her left ring finger where she was wearing a simple wedding band. She didn’t even have an engagement ring.

M nodded. “Nevertheless, you are being detained, Zed, until this matter is resolved. You can give your husband’s information to Miss Moneypenny, and it will be assessed—though given his association to Mr. Blofeld I doubt we don’t already have a file on him—”

Zoe put up her hand. “Did you say Mr. Blofeld?” Her words were a little breathy.

His finger was keeping his place in a file, but M was looking directly at her. “Mr. Ernst Blofeld, born Mr. Franz Oberhauser, your father.”

She blinked. Twice. “There must be some mistake. Franz Oberhauser is my father, as far as I’m aware, but Ernst Blofeld certainly is not.” Her mind flitted to the night they had become engaged, how he insisted she never call herself ‘Zoe Oberhauser’ again.

M’s hand fell and rested on the file. An inquisitive look came over his face. “I beg pardon? Are you acquainted with Ernst Blofeld?”

Not certain if this was a trap, she stated instead, “They’re two different men.”

“They’re the same man, I can assure you. Franz Oberhauser faked his death and took his mother’s maiden name of Blofeld and then, after a stint in bank heists, started an international crime syndicate. Your mother, Emilia Grant, was his mistress when he was little more than a thug, and your uncle, Jeremy Grant, is one of his enforcers. He never showed a capacity for more than keeping his mouth shut, it would seem,” M turned a page in the file, “so he never rose in the ranks, but he was invited to all of the major meetings and his current posting is in Italy.”

Having barely taken a breath, Zoe then sucked in air through her nose. “Are you saying,” she began carefully, “that my mother was Ernst Blofeld’s mistress?”

Blue eyes looked at her, sparking a memory of blue eyes, identical to hers, looking at her in the back of a limousine as she was being made love to, her panties in Blofeld’s pocket. She had to shake herself when M spoke again.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, roughly between 1994 and the very beginning of 1996.”

Zoe suddenly felt sick. She was born in 1996. But, no, it had to be a lie.

“I think you’re mistaken,” she told him. “There must be some mistake.”

“No, no mistake,” M assured her.

“My father’s name was Oberhauser and not Blofeld. They’re two separate people. I would have known if his name had ever been Blofeld. Mother can’t keep it together when she’s drunk. His name would have been thrown around.”

M folded his fingers. “Blofeld has asked to see his only living child. After our research, we have concluded that this child is you. It seems he was much more careful after your conception, though he doesn’t seem to be one for taking mistresses.” He sighed. “Miss Grant, your country needs you to speak with Ernst Blofeld. We’ll be interrogating him but if he wants to know about your childhood, how your mother is, you will be instructed to answer him.”

She shook her head. “There’s some mistake.”

“Shall we, Zed?” He stood and buttoned his jacket and, after a moment, she stood as well. Touching the simple pearl necklace that had been a gift when—but, no—he was not their child’s father and grandfather. It was simply preposterous.

Walking out the door in a bit of a haze, she saw a pretty Black woman in a pencil skirt behind a desk. A man in an impeccably tailored suit, also with blue eyes though as blue as ice, was leaning over and talking to her.

“007.”

The man with ice blue eyes stood and looked at the two of them.

“May I introduce Zed? Zed is our secret weapon against Blofeld although she’s having difficulty accepting the situation.”

“Not at all,” 007 said in an attractive voice. “I grew up with Blofeld as if he were my brother. That’s too close of a relationship. I can’t imagine being biologically related to him. You have his eyes, Zed.”

She slapped him. 

The office went silent.

“Stop lying,” she whispered. “Franz Oberhauser is not Ernst Blofeld. Ernst and I do not have the same eyes.” She waved her hand to dispel the pain and didn’t notice the look sent between M and 007.

A hand was carefully placed on the top of her back. “You do know Ernst Blofeld, then, Zed,” M asked carefully. “Did you meet, perhaps, through your mother or your uncle?”

“Uncle,” she told him. “Uncle Jeremy took me to one of the—meetings—because—” She didn’t want to explain, so she just didn’t “—and I was introduced to Mr. Blofeld. He may have blue eyes, but they’re not the same as mine. My father’s eyes are—I think they’re full of laughter,” Zoe admitted. She’d imagined her father’s eyes for the past nineteen years, and her mum was always standoffish. She imagined warm, laughing eyes.

Blofeld’s eyes were honest, calculating, and sometimes loving. However, they were never laughing.

007 was sharing a look with M and then smiled at her. “My apologies, Zed. Tell me, did you inherit your lovely hair from your mother?”

“Hardly,” she answered as she was escorted out of the office and down a hallway. “I imagine it’s from my father.”

“Now,” M told her. “DNA tests will be conducted on you and Mr. Blofeld—”

She rolled her eyes. “This is one big joke. I need to be in Germany.”

M, however, continued. “When it’s been established you are Ernst Blofeld’s daughter, then we will proceed from there. Britain is grateful to you, Zed. I do understand you have auditions in Germany and you are one of the premiere opera singers to have just graduated conservatory—”

Zoe tuned him out. She was quiet when they got into an elevator and had to be prompted to get out of it. M’s thumbprint and retina had to be scanned to get into the locked hallways and she was startled when she was asked a question.

“When were you married?” 007 was looking down at her wedding band.

“September, just after graduation. We decided to wait until my nineteenth birthday so it would be an auspicious occasion.” She gave him a tight smile and waited to be ushered into the next room. 

Everything was glass and Blofeld was lying on a steel bed in the center of a glass circular room they could see into. She stared at him and then turned to M in shock. “I can definitively state that you have Ernst Blofeld and not Franz Oberhauser.”

Blofeld opened his eyes and looked over at her. Immediately he sat up and put his feet over the side of the bed, and just stared at her.

M looked at him and then at her. “Have you ever actually met Franz Oberhauser, Zed?”

She was shocked. “Well, no, but this is not Franz Oberhauser.” It was so obvious, but everyone seemed to be determined to prove that the two men were in fact one and the same. Blofeld was just sitting there and staring at the three of them.

Then he spoke. “What is the meaning of this? Why did you bring her here?”

007 gave him a cocky smile. “You asked for your only living child, who seems determined that you’re not her father. Isn’t family life wonderful when it’s dysfunctional?” He chuckled to himself. “Zed, I can assure you this is Franz Oberhauser. I grew up with him. I am, in effect, your uncle, though not by blood.”

“Don’t you dare, Bond,” Blofeld threatened, standing. “She’s a married woman.”

“That’s hardly stopped me,” 007 admitted, “but this is a family reunion.”

M sighed. “I’ll give you a lecture on inter-office romance later, Bond.—Zed, this is Franz Oberhauser.”

“I am not her father,” Blofeld stated succinctly. “She’s too young.” Nonetheless, he stood at the edge of the glass and looked at the three of them. “Release her. Miss Grant has auditions and her family has high hopes for her.”

“You actually care,” 007 stated, a little shocked. “She’s the daughter of your former mistress.”

“My mum,” Zoe stated carefully, “was never his mistress. She was Franz Oberhauser’s mistress and this is Ernst Blofeld.”

The four descended into silence.

“Don’t make me do a DNA test to fully blow this apart,” M stated, his vision tunneled on Blofeld. “I don’t know why this girl refuses to admit she might be your daughter—”

“She just turned eighteen in September,” he admitted carefully. “There is no way—”

Zoe gasped. “What are you saying? You and Mum? She always screams about Oberhauser and Uncle Jeremy said that Oberhauser always uses the name ‘Oberhauser’ with his mistresses instead of his assumed name. What are you saying?”

Tears were pouring from her eyes, but she didn’t even try to push them away. She was wearing mascara and eyeliner and they were probably becoming a mess, but all she could do was think that the man who had known her the most intimately had also known her mother in such a way—a woman she intensely disliked and who whored herself out to whatever man would take her, even men who would lock Zoe away without food for days.

“Songbird,” he told her carefully, “I couldn’t tell you. Come here.”

“Ernst!” she demanded, but at the look in his eyes, she dropped her purse and walked up to the glass of his cell. Carefully, she put her hand up to the glass, and she realized it wasn’t glass at all. A moment later, his hand was pressed on the opposite side. All she could feel was cold.

“When I was told you were Jeremy Grant’s niece and you were probably Emilia Grant’s daughter, I realized I couldn’t tell you that I was Franz Oberhauser. What your mother and I had was physical and draining and I can’t believe I let it go on for as long as I did, but it ended. She went off and had you long after we were over. Still, I didn’t want your mother to stand between us. So much stood between us the night we met, and I made it worse, I know, and I will regret it for the rest of my life, but songbird—”

“You’re in a cage,” she murmured. “If you’re not my father, then why was I born Zoe Oberhauser?”

“Your mother’s delusions don’t matter. All that matters is that you just turned eighteen. Your eighteenth birthday was last September. You just finished conservatory.”

She swallowed and looked at him. “I had Mono when I was thirteen and it was so bad I missed a year of school. I’m nineteen, Ernst. I thought you knew.” She looked at him with large blue eyes and he swore. “Ernst?”

“Let me talk to my wife,” he demanded, but M and 007 remained standing behind her. “Have some compassion. I may have—I may have married my own daughter. Let me talk to my wife.”

She balled up one of her hands against the glass. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t believe you.—I don’t believe you, Ernst.” She slammed her fist against the window. “Shut the fuck up! This can’t be happening. You have the dates wrong.” She breathed in heavily.

“Zoe, my dear. Songbird.”

“This is just like Mum,” she stated, mostly to herself. “I’m supposed to be beneath the syndicate, beneath all of you, beneath Oberhauser, and now this. Why am I never good enough? I speak like a low-life, I’m never first in the world, I need to eat less because I’m not thin enough, and yet I’ll make you more pasta, Zoe. I can’t leave the table even if it’s been hours before I eat the entire pot.” She started crying again. “Ernst, why can’t I wake up?”

“Have a heart,” Blofeld begged the others in the room, his eyes though never leaving Zoe.

She was separated from Blofeld until she was brought into a science laboratory. He was wearing scrubs and she was still in her black toga dress. Zoe looked around them and took his hand, which grasped onto hers. He picked it up and, like so many times before, he kissed it.

Leaning into him, she murmured, “I’m three months pregnant now. It’s certain.”

He turned toward her, their similar blue eyes looking into each other, and he gave her a small smile. “What do you want to do?”

Pressing her hand on her stomach, a warmth grew in her heart when his hand pressed up above hers. 

“It’s ours,” she decided, “Ernst and Zoe Blofeld. The name ‘Oberhauser’ doesn’t exist for this baby no matter what they say. Is that all right?”

“That’s perfect,” he whispered, leaning forward and kissing her gently.

She winced when her blood was taken, but he held her hand. Zoe noticed that at some point 007 had appeared, looking at the two of them, at their joint hands. “Is he really your brother?”

“Adoptive,” Blofeld offered. “When his parents died my father got custody. We hated each other.—I hated him. Father always preferred him so I—disappeared.” He sighed. “He wants you. He’ll want to take you away.”

“My entire reason for being here is you.”

“He always has wanted whatever girlfriend I had,” Blofeld admitted a little bitterly. “He got Griselda pregnant. She was the girl I was with before—your mother. I thought I was careful. It doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t she use you against me? Emilia was always a resourceful woman.”

Zoe just shrugged. She didn’t know. Then she realized. “Mum’s never been faithful a day in her life. She doesn’t know who my father is.”

Blofeld looked at her, then placed a kiss on her brow. “Good. We’ll hope for the best.” He squeezed her hand.

“Why ask for your child, though?” she asked in confusion. “If you’d wanted a connection, you would have asked for someone specific, not some unknown.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been careful never to have a child. I thought I’d waste their time.”

“Well,” she stated quietly. “You can’t pull this stunt in six months, can you?”

They smiled at each other.

She was taken away from him again, but she clung to him to the very last moment, their fingers wrapped around fingers, and then he was gone. Zoe was taken to what seemed to be a basic hotel room, but one where the windows couldn’t open and there were passkeys and guards, and she had to submit her order for dinner. Someone escorted her back to MI6 the next morning, but she didn’t get to see Blofeld for days until the DNA was back.

“Congratulations, Zed,” M began as she sat on the other side of his desk. “You’re pregnant.”

Zoe didn’t even blink.

“Judging by your reaction, you already know. If the father is the man we all know is Blofeld, I’m afraid to report that he is your biological father.”

Very quiet and very still, she just sat there and did and said nothing. She internalized this information and M humored her for over half an hour. She was terribly aware of herself, of her body, of the child growing inside of her. If she closed her eyes, she wondered if she could hear her baby’s heartbeat next to her own, if that were even possible, if one could be that still and at one with oneself.

Finally, however, he spoke. “MI6 recognizes that Blofeld held knowledge that your mother was his mistress and there was a vague possibility that you could be his child, and therefore raped you your entire relationship. We will not make you endure your rapist even in the interest of national security.”

“Does he know?” she asked.

M looked at her in confusion.

“Does he know that you’ll let me leave—that I can be free of government overview?”

“Yes. We have told him that you are the victim of a crime that we are ready to prosecute—”

She nodded. Of course. “Thank you. I’d like to go home now.” Blofeld would want her away from the government and not being used as leverage. He’d want their baby safely away from them as well. She would go home to Zurich and she would wait for him, because he would escape this. Nothing could hold Blofeld for long.

He would always come back to her.

She was his songbird.

And they loved each other despite everything.

**The End**


End file.
